7:2 Feast of Booths. The longest festival of the Jewish year (lasting seven days), this feast followed the Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur, Lev. 23; Deut. 16). It was a celebration of God’s gracious provision for the Israelites in the wilderness and the completion of the year’s harvest. There was a ceremonial water-drawing (commemorating the provision of water in the wilderness, Num. 20:2–13) and a lamp-lighting ritual. The first of these ceremonies provides the setting for Jesus’ proclamation in vv. 37, 38, the second for His statement in 8:12.